By:Chris Munzing
Local government officials and members of the Recreation Department's youth swim team opened the pool with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday morning. "We couldn't be happier to be here," City Council President Jim Hennessy said to the swimmers who attended the opening. "This pool is important to the kids, to the seniors, to our local swim team, to everyone."
"This is part of our history," said City Manager Glen Spiritis, a former lifeguard at the pool. "We all grew up here. This was our life."
Jackie Smith, 13, is one of the stars of the Tigersharks, the Recreation Department swim team. Smith and a number of her fellow swimmers addressed members of the City Council at a meeting earlier this year, asking them to find a way to keep the pool open. Smith and several of her teammates were invited to swim the ceremonial first lap.
"We're really happy we have our pool back," Smith said after she got out of the pool. "We're just ecstatic. It'll bring the team back together now that we're all in one place. And it's more convenient for a lot of the parents than the high school."
While the pool was closed, the Tigersharks, along with all of the other patrons of the pool, used the Long Beach High School pool. With so many swimmers, time at the pool was often scarce and inconsistent.
The Rec Center pool closed after a section of the concrete ceiling collapsed last November. The concrete piece fell because the steel beams that reinforce the concrete slabs, which in turn support the roof, rust and expand due to water damage. The concrete around the beams cracks and eventually falls apart. The process is called spawling.
After the collapse, the city was informed that it would take at least a year and a half for construction to be completed, and that the entire ceiling needed to be replaced, which would cost the city more than $1.5 million. After listening to the many children, adults and senior citizens who count on the pool for exercise and therapy, the City Council declared the possibility of an 18-month closure unacceptable.
The city sought a second opinion from Severud Associates, the engineering firm that designed the roofs of Madison Square Garden and La Guardia Airport. Severud Associates found only 10 percent of the ceiling to be damaged, and determined that much less construction was necessary. The repairs, by Penta Restoration Corporation of Long Island City, began in May and were completed within the parameters of the contract, allowing the pool to be opened ahead of schedule, according to Spiritis.
The cost of the project was roughly $350,000, according to Hennessy.
Nicko Fillas, of Penta Restoration, attended the opening of the pool and praised the local government for getting and keeping the ball rolling. "The City Council and the city manager, especially, were on top of this every day," Fillas said. "Dr. Spiritis was down here constantly to make sure we were on time, and we were. It's just a beautiful thing to watch. Just look how happy the kids are."
